


Thief of My Dreams

by Anonymous



Category: Original Work
Genre: Auctions, Competence Kink, Competition, Gambling, Gentleman Thief, Gentlemen's clubs, M/M, Meet-Cute, Snuffboxes, safecracking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29976840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Then he heard it. The most satisfying sound in the world. The sharp sound of metal falling against metal that told him the final piece of the mechanism had yielded.He brought the dark-lantern to bear and in the sliver of light he’d allowed to shine through, opened the door of the safe.His heart gave a great jolt, as if it had fallen from the sky directly into Hades.The safe was empty.
Relationships: Experienced Amateur Cracksman/New Amateur Cracksman Who Steals the Thing First, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1
Collections: Five Figure Fanwork Exchange 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [comicArtistA](https://archiveofourown.org/users/comicArtistA/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this treat!
> 
> Note: This story is connected to the Sherlock Holmes (ACD) story "The Case of the Christmas Crackers," also part of this exchange. Each story stands alone, but if read together, "The Case of the Christmas Crackers" comes first.

“We don’t have very many rules,” said Lloyd Gillis, the club president. He ran a work-roughened hand through his graying hair. “But the ones we have, ye’d better pay heed to them.”

Archibald Ferrell, gentleman safe-cracker, put an interested look on his face, but he’d heard the rules before.

“We don’t care what you do extra-curricular-like,” said Gillis. “So long as you don’t reveal the existence of the club. And so long as you don’t do any thievin’ out of safes you break as part of club challenges. For challenges, you get the serial number out of the inside of the safe, and that’s it. Understood?”

Murmurs of agreement.

Ferrell looked around the basement room. Most of the usuals were there — Harding, Underwood, Pinche, Rowle, Barrett. They wore masks covering their eyes, but there was no mistaking Harding’s ham hands (how he picked locks with those mitts, Ferrell had no idea), or Barrett’s twisted lip, or the other men’s giveaways. He knew they recognized him too.

There were a couple of newcomers, shuffling uncomfortably at the rear of the group of men, wearing the patched garb of dock workers or costermongers. Ferrell knew they wouldn’t last. They’d heard about the club somewhere and hoped to pick up some burgling tips. Burgling tips weren’t what the club was about.

Another newcomer intrigued him. He was young, perhaps twenty-five, and his clothes were of fine materials but had seen better days. Servants sometimes wore the fine castoffs of their masters, but this man didn’t have the manner of a servant. Besides, the clothing fit him too well. He had a flexible mouth, firm chin, and black curls that peeked from under his red flat cap. 

“And if you get in trouble with a challenge or an extra-curricular, don’t come runnin’ to us,” Gillis droned on. “We don’t exist, see. You’re on your own, although a few former members now in Newgate might be willin’ to help ye.”

It always amused Ferrell how Gillis tried to strike fear into his members, because the man who ran the safe-crackers’ club was really an old softy who’d gotten any number of club members out of trouble.

“Excitin’ news tonight,” said Gillis. “Chubb’s released a new design. That means a new contest.”

The club members murmurered with anticipation. 

“Most of you know where to find the details. The rest of you, come see me after the lecture.”

The lecture was not of particular interest to Ferrell. He was fascinated by lockpicking, but cared nothing for opening safes by prying apart the walls. 

When the meeting came to an end, he was frustrated. He wanted to talk to the man with the unruly hair. But approaching people who were new to the club was forbidden. The man would need to speak with Gillis to get details about the contest. Ferrell settled for hanging around outside the door with a hand rolled cigarette. He watched the man exit the building and head off toward Pimlico.

~~~

Ferrell sat forward in his chair in the Pringles Club gaming room and studied his cards with dismay.

His luck was turning against him. 

No, if he were to be honest with himself, he would have to admit it was his skill that was falling short this day. Far too many times, his memory of the cards already played had turned out faulty. And now he had lost the last of the coin he had budgeted for tonight’s gaming — and it was only nine o’clock in the evening.

“I’ll spot you some coin, old boy,” said his fellow player, Bartley, pushing a mop of blond hair away from his eyes. 

“I thank you kindly for the offer, Bartley, but as you know, I never allow myself to fall into debt,” Ferrell replied firmly.

“You’ll never climb the ranks of popularity that way,” Bartley persisted.

“And well I know it,” retorted Ferrell. “I am out of touch with the modern _Zeitgeist,”_ he lamented.

“Yes,” said Bartley in a musing tone of voice. “You have some skills and interests that are uncommon, do you not?”

Ferrell glanced sharply at his companion.

“I know of your...hobby,” Bartley told him. “But do not worry. Your secret is safe with me.” He sat back and stretched his long arms over his head, then resumed his position at the table, hunched over his cards.

Ferrell worried, especially when Bartley emphasized the word “safe.” Bartley was not a scoundrel, but he wasn’t the epitome of honorable behavior either. 

“And speaking of that,” Bartley went on in a low voice, “if you wish, we could continue playing against your...time and expertise, rather than your writing me an IOU.”

Ferrell’s higher instincts warned him against this sort of loan. He didn’t know what Bartley knew about him or what he wanted safe-cracking skills for. 

At the same time, he was overcome with curiosity.

“I accept,” he said.

Ferrell vied for another several hours against Bartley. By the end of the evening, he had once again been thoroughly defeated.

“You win, old boy. How do you want me to use my skills on your behalf?” he asked the other man.

Bartley was polishing his pipe with great satisfaction, in preparation for a victory smoke.

“You have, no doubt, heard of Judge Milbourne?” he said.

Ferrell was instantly alert. The Judge was a force to be reckoned with in his world — that is to say, the world of Ferrell’s second hobby, snuffbox collecting. 

Just how much did Bartley know about him, anyway? 

“I have,” was all he said.

“And do you know his safe?” Bartley asked.

“I do not,” Ferrell replied. 

“I am told the manufacturer is Hobbs, Ashley, & Fortescue, and the model is a newer one.”

Ferrell was definitely excited now. He loved the challenge of the company’s safes. They had one of the trickiest lock designs ever invented. “How is it you know this, Bartley?”

“That’s not important,” said Bartley. “Are you willing to make good on your debt to me?”

“Of course. I am a gentleman, or at least I contrive to come close to being one.”

“I charge you to open the Judge’s safe. Inside you will find a snuffbox. Bring it to me.”

He dug in his pocket and pulled out a snuffbox and handed it to Ferrell. “Also, leave this snuffbox in its place. You have one week to accomplish this.”

Ferrell examined the snuffbox. It was nothing special — an inexpensive potato-pulp box, functional in terms of preserving the moisture in a day’s worth of powdered tobacco, but common, with little aesthetic interest. A collector such as Judge Milbourne would not consider it an acceptable replacement for anything in his collection. 

“Not that I have any right to ask,” he said, “but why do you want me to do this?”

Bartley chuckled, a little self-consciously to Ferrell’s ears.

“It is a prank, nothing more. It will do no one any harm. I give you my word.”

Ferrell’s excitement won out over his common sense’s warning that Bartley’s “word” might be in need of a little polish. “I will do it,” he told him.

~~~

Ferrell, having achieved the interior of the Judge’s townhouse and his study without detection, was lost in the workings of the safe’s lock, basking in the thrill of teasing out its secrets in minute, precise motions of his fingers. He’d even forgotten about the “plop” of the leaking faucet in the nearby bathroom. It had blended into the environment of the challenge.

He had done most of the work in the almost pitch dark of the room, its window shrouded by thick curtains. Now when he opened his eyes, he discerned the shape of his fingers — a faint glimmer of dawn had begun to creep in.

Then he heard it. The most satisfying sound in the world. The sharp report of metal falling against metal that told him the final piece of the mechanism had yielded. 

He brought the dark-lantern to bear and, in the sliver of light he’d allowed to shine through, opened the door of the safe.

His heart gave a great jolt, as if it had fallen from the sky directly into Hades.

The safe was empty.

Ferrell whirled, half-expecting to see a group of people watching him and laughing at his naïveté.

Of course, no one was there.

Anger and frustration held him rooted to the spot for several minutes. He kept peering back into the safe, as if the promised snuffbox might appear after all.

Finally, he decided on a course of action. He noted and memorized the serial number of the box, as he always did. Then he pulled from his pocket the cheap snuffbox Bartley had given him, and placed it inside the safe. He swung the door closed and made sure it was secure.

Then he crept out of the opulent townhouse by the back stair, and made it back to his rooms, where he gave vent to a fit of frustration.

~~~

At Pringles, Ferrell stalked through the rooms, leaving in his wake the alarmed stares of several other members of the club, until he found Bartley in the billiards room.

His angry gaze at the tall, slightly stopped man might well have set a pile of kindling alight.

“Why lie to me? Why send me to open an empty safe?” Ferrell demanded in a hiss, after backing Bartley into a relatively private corner.

Bartley blustered. He didn’t lie. It was some other fellow who had lied to him. Or maybe the Judge had removed the snuffbox from the safe for some reason. And anyway, there was no harm done, was there?

Ferrell was too angry to take it in. He fought down his urge to bloody the man’s nose, and stormed out of the club. No doubt he would be the subject of gossip, as he had nearly knocked down one or two members in his haste to leave. But he hardly cared.


	2. Chapter 2

Ferrell sometimes wished he could change what interested him. Preferring men to women in his romantic life, having obscure, risky hobbies like safe-cracking, and collecting stuffy old objects such as snuffboxes weren’t calculated to earn him the most popularity among his peers. Not caring about popularity wasn’t calculated to allow him to rise to the expectations of his family. 

But then, his family had long since given up on expecting much of anything from him. 

Ferrell laid his auction-paddle on a seat to claim it, and glanced again at his bank-book. 

He had a good chance of winning a box he wanted without exceeding his budget, if only —

That was the other interest which held him back socially. He could imagine what some of the young men at Pringles would say:

“Let me understand. You can open any safe, but your principles won’t allow you to profit from the skill?” 

He perused the collection of snuffboxes, protected within long glass cabinets, as he waited for the auction to begin. 

One of the boxes, with a micro mosaic inlay on the lid, depicting Roman women in a bath, was said to be infused with the scent of Penalvar from Havana. Unfortunately, even the opening bid was above what his budget could bear.

A porcelain box from 1740 caught his eye. The creamy white lid was decorated with colorful Chinese figures in a garden, and the sides with butterflies. The catalog labeled it Kakiemon, but Ferrell knew it was only inspired by that style, made in France. The opening bid was affordable, but he was not interested.

More up his alley was a Russian papier mache box. On the lid were painted three horses pulling a sleigh. He marked that one in his catalog and took another step to the right.

He’d often wondered what it was about snuffboxes in particular that attracted him so. When he’d thought about it, he’d only come up with a collection of traits that didn’t seem to add up to a fascination. He preferred smooth, round and oval boxes. He liked how they felt in his fingers, against his palm, the silver ones heating slowly to his hand’s temperature, the porcelain remaining slightly cool to the touch. He loved the detail that went into decorating such a tiny object. How focused the craftsman’s attention must have been! He imagined entering into the artist’s mind as he placed every micro mosaic piece or painted with a brush that had only a few bristles.

He loved their scents too, when the odor of an exotic snuff clung to the inside. 

And he loved the way the best made boxes closed so snugly to protect their sensitive contents from the environment. A tiny safe place in a dangerous and uncertain world.

Ferrell collided with someone. Apparently the man was perusing the cabinet right to left, against the custom of this auction house. 

“I’m terribly sorry!” Ferrell said. He wanted to leave it at that. He enjoyed his state of mind when he became singularly focused on a goal, be it on the mechanical state of a half-opened set of lock tumblers or on the details of a collection of old snuffboxes. Conversation with other people interrupted that state. 

But the other man spoke to him. 

“No, no, the error is mine,” he said in a soft, baritone voice. “It’s my first time at this auction house, and I now perceive I am traveling against convention.”

Ferrell liked the man’s voice, and found he wanted to see the face that went with it, so he looked up.

The man was a few years younger than Ferrell’s twenty-nine, he judged, but old enough to be out of university. He was slenderly built, with a bow mouth, high cheekbones, and a head of very dark hair that stubbornly curled, despite his attempt to contain its exuberance with Macassar oil. 

As his light brown eyes fixed on Ferrell, an uncomfortable expression briefly appeared on his face, but was quickly swept away and replaced with a slightly sheepish smile. 

Ferrell too felt uncomfortable for a moment and didn’t know why. He, too, covered it up.

“It is of no consequence,” he reassured the younger man. “May I assume you are a fellow collector of snuffboxes?” 

The curly haired man’s smile broadened a bit. “I can’t call myself a collector yet,” he said. “Insufficient funds to devote myself seriously to that hobby.”

“An admirer, then,” said Ferrell.

“Very much so.” 

Ferrell wasn’t the most socially forward of men, but he found himself wanting to know more about his fellow appreciator of antiques. He held out his hand and said, “I’m Archibald Ferrell.”

The younger man took the proffered hand in his. It was large, but Ferrell could tell the fingers were dexterous and sensitive. It was also warm. “I’m Clifford Babington. Pleased to make your acquaintance. I’m new in the City and it’s been a bit of a struggle to get my bearings.”

At that point the bell sounded for the beginning of the auction. Ferrell noticed that the seat next to his (where lay his bidding paddle) was empty.

“Come sit by me, if you wish.”

Even as Babington settled beside him, Ferrell’s hopes fell, like a soufflé taken too soon from the oven. 

He recognized the tall, rangy form of Lord Breckinridge settling into a seat nearby. The Lord gripped his auction paddle as if it were a weapon of war. It might as well have been one.

Ferrell considered leaving. But in the end, he decided against it. There were one or two lesser items he might win, even though Lord B was sure to put him out of the running for the Russian papier mache box he most wanted. 

And he also had his new acquaintance to keep him company.

“Sold! To number 45, for thirty guineas,” shouted the auctioneer. He handed the Kakiemon-inspired porcelain box to an attendant.

Babington hissed in frustration. “That box isn’t worth a quarter of its selling price!” he asserted.

“It’s worth whatever it sells for,” said Ferrell. 

“I suppose you’re right. But — !”

“Oh, I know what you mean,” replied Ferrell. “It’s neither rare nor of particularly high quality, and if those were the only determiners of price, it certainly wouldn’t be fetching such a large sum. But there are many other factors that go into how much a man is willing to pay for a trinket he’s got his eye on.”

“Such as primogeniture,” said Babington with a grimace.

“To be sure, a buyer with ten thousand a year can overpay for many more snuffboxes than a young man newly trying to make his way in London.”

Babington began to speak again, but Ferrell hushed him, because the Russian papier-mâché box was now being bid on.

He raised his paddle three times before he had to give up. 

The bidding went on for a long time.

“Sold! To number 22, for sixty guineas,” said the auctioneer at last.

Ferrell put his head in his hands, not caring what his new acquaintance might think of him for this display of emotion.

It was time for the intermission.

~~~

Ferrell was standing with Babington in the lobby, sharing a lemon ice with him.

“It’s absolutely unbreakable,” Lord Breckinridge pronounced loudly to his hangers-on. 

“Is it a Hobbs model? They are supposed to have the best locks,” replied one of them. 

Ferrell suddenly felt glad he was not a cat. If he had been, his ears would have swiveled forward.

As Lord B blustered about the superiority of his safe, Ferrell couldn’t help it. He snorted with laughter. 

“He’s parroting something a salesman told him,” said Ferrell to Babington. “No safe is unbreakable.”

“Indeed?” said Babington, looking interested.

“Are you going to put your new acquisition in it?” someone asked Lord B.

Lord B laughed. “Who stores a snuffbox in a safe?”

“One who paid sixty guineas for the snuffbox,” retorted a wag in the group.

“A snuffbox in a safe!” repeated Babington.

Ferrell gave him a sharp glance. But there was nothing on the younger man’s face but an amused, slightly puzzled expression. 

Soon the bell rang to signal the start of the second half of the auction. 

“Shall we go back inside?” suggested Ferrell.

Babington made a disgruntled face. “I thought it would be entertaining to come here, but it only reminds me of how little mad money I’ve got.”

“I was thinking much the same thing earlier,” said Ferrell. “Shall we repair to the Goat and Cock, where our pennies will buy us the much more reasonably priced entertainment of a few pints?”

“That sounds like a capital idea,” said Babington, running a hand through his curls, which only served to make them more unruly than ever.

He hadn’t come away with any interesting snuffboxes, reflected Ferrell, but perhaps the afternoon wasn’t a complete waste.

~~~

The pub was cheery and as yet uncrowded. The beer was inexpensive and refreshing.

“So that’s why the Detector and Protector locks, of Chubb and Hobbs respectively, are the most difficult to crack,” finished Ferrell. 

He felt momentarily embarrassed. He wasn’t sure what had come over him, waxing didactic like that, and he hoped that his lecture on the history of safes and locks hadn’t bored the younger man. 

But Babington didn’t seem bored. His eyes glittered as he gazed into Ferrell’s face.

“Fancy another? My round this time,” Babington said, indicating their empty mugs.

Ferrell accepted happily. 

“This is a conversational gambit I like to drop at my club,” Ferrell said as they worked on their second pints. “Let’s say you have a magical power. Let’s say you’re invisible. Would you use this power to do things you can’t do in reality? Would you use it to gain advantages you wouldn’t otherwise have?”

Babington glanced at Ferrell once, seemingly startled, and then stared deeply into his pint glass.

“I confess I would,” he said. “I’m no saint. I use opportunities presented to me, same as most men. I don’t always trouble myself about their being perfectly ethical. How about you?”

“I would use the power,” said Ferrell. “I feel constrained if I can’t use my abilities. In life, I also use advantages I’ve been given. But I do draw certain lines. Specifically, I don’t like to think that my actions might cause grievous harm.” 

“That raises the question of what counts as grievous harm,” pointed out Babington at once.

Ferrell was liking the cut of this man’s jib more and more.

“The man who won the last snuffbox, just before we left,” Ferrell said. “Let’s say I were to break into his house and steal it. It is against the law, but would it cause grievous harm?”

“Unlikely,” suggested Babington. “He has other snuffboxes, and certainly enough wealth that losing one valuable snuffbox won’t harm him financially.”

“Those are my views also. And so, if given the opportunity, I would consider taking it. But I would hesitate to sell the box to enrich myself. I prefer to earn money above board.”

“Would you judge a person who took a different approach to the money aspect of the theft?”

“I confess I likely would. Depending on the type of person. I don’t judge someone who steals to feed their family. But if a fellow club-member steals a valuable item and uses the proceeds to buy himself, say, a new ascot, I would find it distressingly frivolous.”

“And if he were to use it to buy himself a livelihood?”

“Oh! A most intriguing question, Mr Babington!” said Ferrell. “I like the way you think.”

“I like _that_ you think,” Babington returned, with a winning smile. “I have met distressingly few thoughtful men since making London my home.”

“It is discouraging,” Ferrell agreed. “Earlier today, I was lamenting my collecting hobby. So obscure, so old-fashioned. When I tell people what it is, usually their eyes glaze over in a few moments. I can practically tell time with it. And yet, today that hobby brought me an enjoyable companion. I must depart soon, but may I know a way of reaching you?”

They exchanged calling cards.


	3. Chapter 3

Ferrell made up his mind. He had been tasked to break into a safe and steal a snuffbox. Break into a safe and steal a snuffbox, he would. But this one he wasn’t going to give to Bartley.

This one would be his.

So engrossed was he in working the lock of Lord Breckenridge’s safe that he forgot to listen to the house around him, hinting with small creaks and groans that it had another active occupant. Until he heard a small gasp behind him.

Ferrell was immediately mindful of the possibility that the other person in the room might have a firearm trained on him. He straightened from where he had been bent over the safe, then stood stock still, his hands held away from his body. 

He had in mind a few things his captor might say. “How dare you?” or “I’ve got you, you cad,” or “what in blazes are you doing here?” were among the possibilities. 

Hearing his name was not.

“Ferrell?” a familiar baritone voice said.

Ferrell turned around slowly. 

He could not see clearly the man standing in the doorway, but he was silhouetted by the light of the streetlamps filtering through the window behind him. Ferrell could only discern a slender shape topped by a head of unruly curls. 

He held something small in his hand, something that glittered with a metallic sheen.

Ferrell put the shape and the voice and the way the man held the glittering object together.

“Babington?” he said with utter astonishment. 

The man drew in a breath but said nothing.

“What is that in your hand?”

Babington appeared to fidget, and then he said playfully, “I’m the one who caught you, you know. You shouldn’t be interrogating _me.”_

“I rather think that we’ve caught each other,” Ferrell retorted. “Unless you have connections you’ve concealed from me, it would appear your purpose for being in this room is as illegitimate as mine.” 

“Look here—” began Babington, flustered.

“And I also suspect you of being less than forthcoming about some of your _interests,”_ Ferrell went on. “For example, you could have told me at the pub that I didn’t need to provide you with an explanation of a Detector lock. Or you could have mentioned that we’d both attended the safe-cracker’s club the other day. You in your red cap. And your curls.”

Babington chuckled. “But I loved how you explained it!” he said.

Ferrell was overall a mild mannered man. Unless provoked, he was disinclined to act swiftly and willfully toward another person. 

He was provoked.

Using skills honed in his wrestling days, Ferrell took three swift steps, caught Babington’s arm, and tried to twist it behind him.

And then he abruptly stopped, and dropped Babington’s arm, because he saw more clearly what was in his hand. He remembered the auction he’d gone to—was it only a week ago?—and the beautiful, lacquered box that the Judge had so nonchalantly spent forty guineas on. A price so out of Ferrell’s budget that the box might as well have ended up on the moon.

“By God, is that _Judge Milbourne’s_ snuffbox?” he hissed. “Where did you—did you—?”

The young man seemed to grow several inches. “I cracked his safe,” he said, in a voice bursting with pride.

Ferrell’s mouth fell open and remained that way for several seconds.

“It was _you!”_ he said at last. “Did Bartley put you up to it?”

“Who? Put me up to what?”

“Cracking Milbourne’s safe! Stealing his snuffbox!”

“I...” Babington fidgeted uncomfortably. Looked Ferrell in the eye. Drew a deep breath and went on.

“He didn’t give me a name,” he said.

“Who didn’t?”

“The man who hired me to open the safe.”

“Blond fellow? Tall, a little stooped?”

Babington shook his head. “The man who hired me had dark hair. And he wasn’t tall.”

Ferrell gave Babington a sharp look. 

“But he offered you money to break into Milbourne’s safe?”

“Yes...Look. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I’m harder up than I let on yesterday,” Babington admitted. “I needed the money. The man wanted me to take something that would provoke Milbourne to go to the police, but he said he didn’t care what. So it seemed I could do the job without causing great harm. I did it, and the same man hired me to come here.”

He hung his head. “You never answered me when I asked whether you believed it morally objectionable to use your power to buy yourself a livelihood,” he said. 

Ferrell let the silence hang. He could tell Babington wanted to say more.

Babington looked up at him. Even in the dim light, his eyes were fiery. “I hope to all the gods you don’t. I want your regard, Ferrell. I want it badly.”

Ferrell’s body broke out in a hot sweat. He now had two curiosities warring within him.

He chose to reassure Babington with words. 

“You have my regard,” he told the younger man. “My moral character is similarly under question.” 

Babington listened raptly as Ferrell explained about Bartley and the wager and the empty safe. His mouth remained open for several seconds afterward. Then he covered it with his hand and began shaking with silent laughter. He went on and on, until Ferrell couldn’t help but start laughing too.

“But wait!” said Ferrell finally, in a high pitched voice, still wheezing slightly. “I still have questions!”

“What are they?”

“How do you come to still have Milbourne’s snuffbox? And why did you bring it here?”

“The man who hired me said he didn’t want it after all, that his goal had been to get Milbourne to go to the police, and he had. So I kept the box.”

He paused, peering at the little trinket for a moment.

“As for why I brought it here...I am still a bit ashamed of breaking a safe like a common burglar. So I thought to leave this behind as a little puzzle. A signature, if you will. And after all, I was planning to take a snuffbox—“ 

He suddenly broke off. 

“—I mean, that is to say, I wasn’t planning to take it from _you,_ Ferrell. I didn’t know you were going to come get it yourself. I—I wanted to—well, dash it all, I was going to take the snuffbox Lord B won and give it to you, because I knew you loved it and—I—I wanted to impress you. Please you. In a way I thought only I could.”

He ran out of words and just stood there looking at Ferrell. _Rather as if I were a Christmas goose,_ Ferrell thought to himself. _I’ve never been a Christmas goose to anyone before._

“Babington...” was all he could think of to say.

“Look here. Will you call me Clifford?”

“If you will call me Archibald,” the older man said, taking a step and closing the distance between them.

“Archibald.”

“Clifford,” whispered Ferrell, and put his hand in the curly hair. “My new friend Clifford. How I adore the way you think.”

“I say...I would really like to kiss you right now.”

They draped their arms over each other’s shoulders, Babington still clutching the snuffbox, and their mouths came together.

Ferrell broke off the kiss sooner than he wanted to. 

“I hate to bring up practicalities now, but we should leave before we’re discovered.”

“Leave?” asked Babington in a voice of incredulity. “We—you—still haven’t cracked the safe!”

This type of lock picking was a one-man job. Babington stood watch while Ferrell finished cracking the lock. Ferrell took the snuffbox out of the safe and admired it. It was even more beautiful, in its flawed way, than he had remembered. 

He turned hungry eyes on his new friend.

“And now?” he said. He swung the safe shut and the lock thunked back into place.

“Archibald!” hissed Babington, standing near the doorway. “You didn’t give me a chance to put Milbourne’s snuffbox inside!”

Ferrell tugged him a little way into the room. He handed Babington the dark-lantern. “And deprive you of a chance to open the safe yourself? Not a chance. It’s your turn now. I’ll keep watch.”

~~~

It was a near thing. Dawn had half risen by the time the two men slipped out the gate of Lord B’s townhouse. Arm in arm, they headed toward Ferrell’s rooms, which were the closest. His landlady frowned upon strangers in the house, outside of afternoon visiting hours, but they slipped in at the servants’ entrance, trying to keep their snickers quiet.

They missed breakfast, nourishing themselves inadequately on a tin of biscuits Ferrell had secreted in his rooms. They came close to missing lunch. But their exertions had made them ravenous. They repaired to the nearest tea shop, then back to Ferrell’s rooms. 

Relaxing in between rounds of fucking each other senseless, Babington began snickering and couldn’t stop. Ferrell couldn’t help joining him. He finally got a few words out in between his stifled giggles.

“What’s so funny, Clifford?”

“I’m just imagining what the police are going to think of all this safe-cracking and snuffbox swapping,” wheezed Clifford. “Wouldn’t it be funny if we continued to do it, just to baffle them?”

“You delightfully mischievous man,” Ferrell said, kissing him. “But not together. We scarcely got out undiscovered last night—I mean, this morning.”

“Not together,” Babington agreed. “But perhaps we could have a little competition between us.”

“You mean other than the one we’ve been having all morning?” asked Ferrell, because they had discovered in their play a mutual enjoyment of struggling to best the other and force him to submit to whatever pleasure the winner chose to offer him.

Babington fended off Ferrell’s attempt to flip him onto his belly.

“One of us discovers a safe, and places a snuffbox in it,” he said. “And the other—O cruel! stop tickling!”

“And the other?” Ferrell took over the idea. “The other replaces it with a different one?” He slapped Babington’s hand away from a sensitive portion of his anatomy. “What a capital idea!”

“I’ve always wanted to be part of a harmless criminal caper,” admitted Babington. “Just think. We might confuse Scotland Yard so much that they’d call in the great Sherlock Holmes.”


End file.
